As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Increasingly, information handling systems are deployed in architectures by which information handling systems boot their respective operating systems and/or access shared data remotely from storage resources via a network. Often, these architectures are employed for numerous reasons, including without limitation: (1) increased concern with the security of data-at-rest in information handling systems, particularly in portable computing devices (e.g., notebooks, laptops, and handhelds); and (2) simplified operating system and data management. However, in certain architectures, multiple physical or virtual information handling systems may share a common operating system image and/or data image, but such information handling systems may also require access to its own private data. In order to effectively access and manage such shared operating systems images and/or data, such architectures often require storage commands beyond those typically supported by industry-standard storage protocols (e.g., small computer system interface, or “SCSI”, protocol). Accordingly, numerous proprietary, non-standard, storage protocols have arisen to manage shared operating system images and data.